Saturday, June 11, 2016

Crossover Cover: The Green Lama Unbound

I covered the original version of this novel some time ago. Since then, a revised and expanded version has been published by Moonstone Books. The
Green Lama battles Cthulhu. Cthulhu;
Nyarlathotep; R’lyeh; the Great Old Ones; the Outer Gods; the
Necronomicon;
the Deep Ones; Abdul Alhazred; Glyyu-Uho; Vhoorl; flying polyps; the
Great Race of Yith; shoggoths; Arkham, Massachusetts; Innsmouth; the
Miskatonic River; Miskatonic University; Professor Randolph Carter;
and Zkauba are from the works of H. P. Lovecraft. This novel also
makes use of characters and places from Cthulhu Mythos tales by
August Derleth (the Elder Gods); Brian Lumley (Chthonians and Shudde
M’ell); Ramsey Campbell (Baalbo, Yifne, and Tond); Walter C.
DeBill, Jr. (Ogntlach); Lin Carter (Xoth); and A. A. Attanasio
(Yaksh). Rick
Masters and Twin Eagle had their own feature in Spark Publications’
Green Lama comic book series. “That guy who lives in the Empire
State Building” is a well-known bronze-skinned pulp hero. Arnold
Toht is from the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders
of the Lost Ark,
while Colonel Ernst Vogel is from the third film in the series,
Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade.
Neville Sinclair is from the film version of Dave Stevens’ comic
The
Rocketeer.
Since the comic book has already been incorporated into the Crossover
Universe, the Sinclair mentioned here must be the CU counterpart of
the Sinclair from the film, which follows a different continuity than
the comic. The phrase “klaatu
barada nikto”
appears in both the science fiction film The
Day the Earth Stood Still and
Sam Raimi’s Evil
Dead films.
Foster Fade, “the crime spectacularist,” appeared in three
stories by Lester Dent in All
Detective Magazine in
1934. Richard Knight appeared in the pulp magazine Flying
Aces in
stories by Donald E. Keyhoe. The Black Bat was created by Norman
Daniels and appeared in Black
Book Detective.
The Lama’s old detective friend in London is Sherlock Holmes.
Elisha Pond is a false identity used by Secret Agent X, who appeared
in a titular magazine. The original version of the novel has a few
references that were deleted from the revised version, such as a
rampaging ape (King Kong), Captain Hazzard (a one-shot pulp hero
created by Paul Chadwick), Dan Fowler (an FBI agent appearing in the
pulp G-Men
Detective),
Lance Star (a Canadian pulp hero recently revived by Bobby Nash and
other writers), and Jim Anthony (who appeared in the magazine Super
Detective).